


Playing Favourites

by nonky



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Angst, Episode: s03e17 Maelstrom, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-04
Updated: 2019-11-04
Packaged: 2021-01-22 14:51:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21303899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nonky/pseuds/nonky
Summary: He wasn't sure what the fleet would have done without her charisma.
Relationships: Lee "Apollo" Adama/Kara "Starbuck" Thrace
Kudos: 15





	Playing Favourites

They made a game of not fearing their separation, playing at indifference to hide their greatest joint terror.

It started with their return from Kobol and their short punishments. Lee's brig stay for mutiny was about three hours longer than Kara's for being AWOL. It was the first time his transgression had been the larger disobedience. He was happy to be back, relieved his father lived and was on his feet, and vividly remembered standing in the field with the stars showing them the way to Earth. 

It was almost worth the horror of seeing Kara blink out of his airspace, with the echoes of his hails forever going unanswered. But she'd come back, so Lee would do his best to move forward. 

Her nuggets came to set her free, a clutch of them mashed into the tiny brig. Kara was cocky and smiling. She walked out of the cell with her jacket draped over her shoulder. Eager feet shuffled and scuffed as they all wound up to hear her first words after becoming a literal mythic heroine. 

"So, rooks, who was the dumbest while I was gone," Kara asked firmly. 

Seemingly everybody, because each nugget named another. A few names were mentioned more often, but Kara wasn't really going to discipline anyone. She liked her screw-up pilots the most. 

"All of you, huh? Well, I had my chance to get out, and I came back. I guess you're still my problem."

Kat, usually the bravest of the nuggets, put an arm around her, but Kara made it a hug. There was a moment of heightened emotions, as if the whole group suddenly felt the full danger of her absence realized and then lifted. They shuffled in, bunching until the brig contained Lee in a cell, a bemused Marine guard, and an olive drab group hug with Kara's blonde hair roughly in the middle. 

The hug lasted only as long as it took for everyone to make room and give a quick pat to their two nearest buddies. Kara waved them out of her path and looked over her shoulder at Lee. 

"Say hello to your CAG, kids," she teased. "Even if he's done some bad things, he's still your sky dad."

Lee waved through his bars, humouring Kara. The nuggets gave him nervous smiles, until they saw he was standing casually and obviously more enraptured with her than ever. 

"He was so mad at you, Starbuck," Hot Dog said cheerfully. "He nearly shot Tigh in the head!"

Kara nodded. "I heard, but in fairness, I have often thought how much more hot water there would be if I just started my shower with a few warning shots around the head."

"Two unrelated incidents," he insisted, knocking on his bars until she went back toward him and took what he had hidden in his fist. 

"Thank you," she grinned, looking at the cigar. "I assume you'll be setting a better example once you can come home?"

He recognized his cue, to signal the nuggets they were all getting back to normal. 

"I'm sorry, nuggets," he called. "Please consider this a lapse I am sorely regretting, and never lead a mutiny. It just gets you stuck on a planet with Starbuck sharing your tent."

"Say bye to your father, we have to go. Bye Lee. Don't let incarceration harden you!"

"It's less than three hours now, Kara, I'd get started trying to get away with whatever you have planned before I can catch you."

She smirked on her way out the door, the rookies looking back at him but decisively drawn to follow Starbuck. 

He wasn't sure what the fleet would have done without her charisma.

"I got that ugly spring in the seat, Sir," Chief Tyrol told her, hopping down from her stairs up to the cockpit. "Should be much easier on the six."

"Oh, I love you, Chief! You're wonderful," Kara crowed. 

Lee cleared his throat, and gave a hard look to Tyrol. "Oh, is that how it is?"

Kara knelt up to lean over and address him. "Don't be jealous. It's just he's so good to me, Lee. You're my go-to for stodgy advice about overly serious topics."

He looked at Galen with sympathy. "I can only wish you better luck than I've had."

"I should be carrying on," the Chief said, before he reached above his head to get a quick, friendly grasp of her hand. "Love you, too, Starbuck!"

"Love you more!"

Lee shook his head, walking away deliberately. 

His eulogy should have been filled with memories and details. There should have been a flood of words rushing into a torrent of pain, like infection swelled and escaped a wound. 

The reality of it was clipped and tightly, tightly vented sentences; counted breaths and pauses measured out the length of his heart ripping. He said the right things but it felt artificial. The praise sounded like condemnation, and her foul temper sounded tender like a prayer. Jokes were the most dangerous, like trying not to go through the ice as he walked across a frozen ocean. He was numb, but if he slipped and went under the pain would kill him instantly. 

The only smile Lee had left was when he realized dying of grief would implicate Kara in his end the way she'd implicated him in her own. 

He should have thrown out his notes and told the truth. She was a screw-up, and he didn't care. She threatened his sanity and Lee welcomed it. Kara was rude, reckless, impatient, horribly broken and past saving. She was another man's wife. She'd whispered gently into space as she flew away from him, love audible for an imaginary something other than him. All of her love burned with her body, everything he'd wanted wasted on everyone but him. 

He knew she had loved him though, because the longer she was dead the more the warmth of it faded from his skin. He could feel it like glacially moving frostbite, numbing him. If it could just continue, he would eventually be free to decide his own fate. And if he could ever forget her, the sudden rush of Kara's unspoken heat would stop interfering when a memory came vividly to mind.

He was always and never going to be free of her now.


End file.
